Read a classic.  The Brothers Karamazov is, in my opinion, the greatest novel ever written.

What do you like?  Fiction, non fiction, biographies, history?

My personal favorite is

Mary Chestnut's Civil War.   It's her personal diary.  It's extremely long but is full of wonderful detail of the years 1860-1865.  She was an eye witness to the bombing of Fort Sumter. .  And the wife of a confederate colonel.  They were personal friends of Jefferson Davis and his wife.  Mary Chestnut details how a southern woman felt about the war, Lincoln, slavery, Jefferson Davis etc.

Thriller=Marathon Man; Mystery=The Maltese Falcon; Novel=From Here to Eternity

Ooh, Audrey, that sounds like a great book. I love nonfiction. I'll have to keep that one in mind.

Best fun read ever=The Count of Monte Cristo

Best History=Bruce Catton's Civil War trilogy

Bram Stoker's Dracula

It's a scary read!

 Best fun read ever=The Count of Monte Cristo

That is a fun read.  I should take a look at that one again when I go on retreat in December.

defyinggravity, what exactly are you looking for?  There's tons of great literature out there.

What sort of books do you like?  Fantasty, love stories, sagas, etc?  I read a lot and might have some suggestions.

The Count of Monte Cristo, as mentioned by other readers, is my all time favorite book.  The book has everything from love, greed, revenge and so on. 

 Alexandre Dumas ...

Queen Margo is the best in my opinoin. There's a great film adaption of that book,  with the same title; Isabelle Adjani is Margot. It's  Execellent !

--virgil 

Nineteenth century French:  Stendhal, Balzac, Dumas;  Hugo and Zola ( especially those two guys ) are great reads.

But, I must say, Dostoevsky is the greatest of them all !

He's Russian .

--virgil

Audrey: can you get that book in the library or buy it, I tried to find but could not, maybe I need some pointers

The Godfather

The Winds Of War

Wind  From The Carolinas

Exodus

Banner With A Strange Device

Infinity Of Mirrors

The Word

For fun, all the Southern Sisters mysteries, The Alpine Series

Dale Browns Flight of the Old Dog if you like technical fiction

The Physcian and sequel The Shaman

Wait, I'm running out of paper here.

Tweentieth Century American ...

Anything by Saul Bellow  and John Updike, you can't go wrong with.

--virgil

I just finished a good one on  the ancient Roman philosopher and politician, Cicero.

I'd recommend it to anyone.

--virgil

Any of the 60+ mysteries written by Agatha Christie. 

Gone with the wind.

O Pioneers

Huckleberry Finn

Any Jane Austen novel

I'm seriously looking for anything.  I tend to lean more towards fantasy or young adult.  I like something quick and exciting. 

But I mean it, anything. Some personal favorites are great.  Cause I'll just write 'em down and read the synopsis see if it's worth a try.  But obviously I have to get the count of monte cristo

"Crime and Punishment," Dostoevsky.  Or anything by James Lee Burke, for modern fictional mysteries usually with a regional setting.

Msjenny

I've tried to buy it but it's out of print and existing copies are hard to find.  There's a coffee stained (my bad) copy  at the Southwest branch on Ming.

I must confess, the closest I've ever come to stealing anything was when I considered not returning that book.  :-)

Once you start reading the diaries of women, you'll become addicted.  It makes you better understand your own trials as a woman.  It seems that keeping journals during the civil war was a common thing among women.  I have an entire library of other diarists, if you want a few names.  Russo books always carries a few diaries in their inventory.  

There's another book I recommend.  It the letters, essays and diaries of our founding fathers.  I can't remember the title offhand,  I'll have to look for it because it's buried amongst hundreds of books in our garage.  It's a fascinating look at early America written by men and women of that time.   From Benjamin Franklin to the Salem Witch Trials. 

Audrey, I just finished a book of Miss Marple vignettes...it was a lot of fun.  Short and clever.

Defy..the ones listed are most likely their favorites.  In mine some oare pretty old but still great reads to me.

Young Adult?

Reread all of Laura Ingall Wilder's Little House on the Prarie  books.

I read them once as a child and twice as an adult.  It's been about 20 years since I've read them so I'd better give them another go before I get too old.

Anything by Sylvia Plath.  

Well i want to clarify I read young adult because I want to write Young Adult Fiction/fantasy.  I've already "written" two books. But the books I've read about writing novels all say to know your market and audience. So... But they ALSO say to branch out and read other genres.

~Virgil~...OK Comrade..he may be Russian--but I'm an American..and I'm drunk...thank you very much...

The Ling !!

--virgil

Recommended by a fellow Queen:

Short Story: 

"I Want To Know Why"  Sherwood Anderson
(some people don't get this story at ALL. But gay people get it immediately.)

Novel:

"To Kill A Mockingbird"  Harper Lee, Pulitzer Prize
"A Confederacy Of Dunces" John Kennedy Toole, Pulitzer Prize
(What these two books have in common is that they are the only book each of these authors ever wrote and they speak deeply to gay sensibilities; the former speaks to your heart  and the latter, well, if there was ever a funnier book ever written, I don't know what it is.)
 

Memoire:

"Running With Scissors" Augusten Burroughs

Non Fiction:

"The Celluloid Closet"  Vito Russo
"Virtually Normal" Andrew Sullivan

All you people are becoming my BFF!

Nancy, An Infiniti of Mirrors is one of the best books I ever read, as are most of his.

Ray, I laugh out loud when I just read the title A Confederacy of Dunces

Audrey, Nothing, absolutely nothing, is better than Huckleberry Finn

And finally, don't get mad, but the Harry Potter books are some of the best around.

Ah, One I forgot about the deep south in the 60's integration period is Look Away, Look Away.

The Heart is  a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers is a good book.

If you want on of the classics and a good laugh, I'd recommend Candide by Voltaire.

Audrey - Is this the book you were talking about?

Mary Chestnut's Civil War

I'm hoping so, since it looks like I can snag a copy (new or used).

And I've cited One Thousand White Women every time this topic comes up, only because I read so little fiction. If you're down for nonfiction (critter-related stuff) I have several recommendations for you --- but most aren't   :-)

Reading Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Teryy Pratchett right now ~ wicked fun.

 The Legend of Drizzt ( about 13 books) by R.A. Salvatore is great sci-fi/fantasy.

Wizzards of the Coast has a slew of authors  besides the above. But Drizzt is my kind of character~ dark outsider with a philosphical bent.

Good choice all!

Yes Bakoblu

where did you find it?

Jf, you've been poking around in my personal library.  

Richard Pryor's autobiography is pretty funny.

Bakoblue, that sounds interesting.  I think I want to read that myself.

Ray, Lonely Hunter made me look at opposing viewpoints differently.  We can all look at the same thing and come up with something different.  The characters wanted the same thing but had different ideas of how to get there...kind of like the folks I talk to everyday.

Audrey --- It's on Amazon.com. Looks like you can get copies new or used. That is now going on my Amazon wish list --- in case anyone is in the mood to buy me anything :-)

JF, I came to that book because McCullers was a lesbian and in pursing my degree I took a class in G&L literature. But, the thing that struck me was that the deaf characters. It is soooooo hard to find dignified stories about deaf people and I was sitting in that class, hearing aids in both ears and three feet from the professor's desk and couldn't hear her. I didn't know such characters existed and I was soooooo proud to find that book.   I also found Maya Angelou in that class.  There are books that are life-changing. Of the two, I'd say Angelou's hits me deeper but both books are touchstones to me.

Lonely Hunter was definitely life changing for me.  The deaf character reminded me of Jesus and how people from all over the world perceive him.  We pray to him everyday and receive "answers" just as the characters received answers from the deaf (mute) character.

I'm going to buy it!  At last, my own copy.

JF, now you've gone and done it.

I ***just*** finished reading To Kill A Mockinbird for about the fourth time. (literally  an hour ago) and now Hunter is staring at me. See ya later (and thanks for the reminder).

The Bluest Eye- Toni Morrison

Ways of the World by Ron Suskind

Books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Love in the Time of  Cholera ( a love story for us oldsters)( great film too!)

and  100 Years of Solitude... fascinating fanasty

Anything by Umberto Eco,he is an Italian philosopher and the books are translated ~ I liked Bauldolino but I hear The Name of the Rose is his best~ think Voltaire ,Swift etc. with a serious twist. Not for everybody.

And don't forget, also, Going Rogue by Sarah Palin is coming out soon, also.

Also.

Magic Johnson has a book coming out, too.

Ya... Going Rouge proves that any idiot can write a book.  It also makes me think of the video game World of Warcraft.

 Ya... an Going Rouge proves that any idiot can write a book.

Or hire a ghostwriter...

If her book is anything like her haiku of a farewell speech, I'm sure it will be RIVETING.

"Eight" by Katherine Neville is a good read . . . . . .

"Going Rouge" is sure to be a more important book than its counterpart volume by the Blunderer from the Tundra.

Second the nom for "Eight."  Just gave it to my daughter for her birthday.

If you can stand science fiction, "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson is incredible.  I'm halfway through his "Quicksilver," volume one of a trilogy set during the Scientific Revolution.  (Ben Franklin, age eight, is a minor character.)

RAY I read "I Want To Know Why"  Sherwood Anderson and loved it.  It was a little tough to get through at first but about halfway through I was hooked.